Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day028.16
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25
MR IRVING: I only want to say one more thing in winding up.
Am I right in saying the situation in Germany is far more
sensitive than it is in other countries as a result of the
Second World War and the Holocaust, the political
situation is more sensitive, is it not?
A. Because of several reasons, if I may answer that in that
way? The main reason for the given period that is of
interest with respect to the libel act is that at that
period some groupings converted, and in the same period we
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had converted, came nearer to each other, converged --
excuse me, I got it wrong yesterday, converged -- and this
is especially the case for parts of the revisionist
movement and parts of the neoNational Socialist movement
and parts of the old traditional right-wing extremist
movement, and this took place in a sensitive moment of
history of postwar Germany in which the East German part
has to be included, integrated, what-have-you, and in that
period of time there was a lot of rage, a lot of vacuum of
political order, so they could spread their influence, and
because of that it was very sensitive, especially also to
the authorities that were led at that time by the central,
by the CDU FDP led government, and ----
Q. Now let me ask you this question ----
A. --- this is one dimension of the sensitivity. The other
is, of course, you refer to the renewal, the necessity of
the renewal, of the liberal democracy and the
constitutional law system, after the total distortion of
all the laws we had during the Nazi period.
Q. Now, we did not have these problems in the non-Germany
countries, did we?
A. In the?
Q. Outside Germany, we did not have these sensitive problems,
did we?
A. In different ways, of course, but not in that way.
Q. Let me explain what I am getting at.
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A. There is always a specific to it and this is the
specificity with respect to Germany.
Q. Would I be right, therefore, in saying that something
described or defined as right-wing extremism in a
sensitive country like Germany would merely be shrugged
off in England and the United States where we are much more robust?
A. I did not, I would not say this, because if you would have
a situation, let us say, in a given country where within
three years 70 people were murdered by right-wing
extremists at their activities, then there would be a
sensitive situation for any liberal democracy in the
world, I think.
Q. But we do not have that situation outside Germany, do we?
We do not have that situation?
A. We have that situation, yes, of course, in the course of
this century, of course.
Q. But not in England? In England we do not have -- if
somebody is described as a right-wing extremist in
Germany, it has a definite kind of echo or resonance.
People are more likely to be described as right-wing
extremists in Germany where the situation is so sensitive
than in England or America where we do not have this sensitivity?
A. I am not so, I have not the same expertise on the English
situation, but what I know is that there were not 70
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people in the early '90s murdered, and the Libel Act is
referring to the dangerousness of Holocaust deniers in a
given moment of time in a given country. So in that sense
it is specific, but it would have been also specific for a
country that had this same amount of violence.
Q. Thank you. No further questions.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I ask you one question before, if I may,
Mr Rampton? It is about Thomas Dienel, because I do not
remember any evidence about why you say there was an
association between him and Mr Irving. Can you remember
off the top of your head?
A. Yes, just, please, I may remind you to the Halle event,
where Thomas Dienel was one of the main organizer, aside
from Christian Worch, this blond haired --
Q. Young --
A. -- middle aged, 40, let us say, young, person, who was on
the podium and shouted after the -- so far as I recall,
yes, after the end of the speech of David Irving, against,
you know, criminal foreigners.
Q. -- I know. Yes, thank you, I am afraid I had --
MR RAMPTON: I think he was there at least once.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Beginning and the end, I think.
MR RAMPTON: Yes.
A. He was before, also, if you look closely in end.
Q. He spoke?
A. He spoke before and after.
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MR IRVING: Can I just ask two questions?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course, you can.
MR IRVING: That is your only evidence for Mr Dienel being
involved in organizing the Halle function, is it not, that
he was there and that he spoke; do you have any
documentary evidence? Did he sign any posters or anything?
A. How was it to be signed? It was said in the letters that
went around to prepare this and to organize this meeting
that Dienel was the core organizer, yes.
Q. Which letters are these?
A. We have to look in my report, it is stated there.
Q. Were any of these letters sent to me before the meeting?
A. No, I said it yesterday already that you got the
invitation by Uschi Worch.
Q. On the evening before?
A. Yes. This is clear because you had, according to your
diary, the idea to go to a different place.
Q. And you accept that none of the video footage we saw, none
of the visual material that we saw shows me at any time
together with Mr Dienel?
A. I mean --
Q. Yes or no?
A. -- the video did not show you. It did not show that,
because Dienel went downstage just so far as the video is
concerned, when you went up, but you have heard him, I am
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sure, because you could not leave the scene without air
flight as quick as he started his speech.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, so I am clear what your case is,
you are putting to this witness that the only connection
with Dienel is that one meeting at Halle and you have no
idea he was going to be there, and otherwise you have
never had any dealings with him face to face, or in
writing or anything of that kind?
MR IRVING: Very definitely, my Lord, and in this case your
Lordship will see my reaction yesterday, I was totally
astonished at any suggestion to the opposite.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe that.
MR IRVING: I think it is similar to the Thistle case (?)
because I am in the same city, on the same day therefore I
must have known them, shaken hands and given them a bear hug.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very clear, thank you.
MR RAMPTON: Yes, in fact the correct running order was, my
Lord, Worch introduces Irving, Irving mounts the podium
and join Dienel and Worch, speaks for a page. Worch then
speaks for quarter a page and introduces Dienel, who then
does his bit.
MR IRVING: We might have to see that video again.
MR RAMPTON: I am sure we shall have to see to again, no
question. I shall show it again in closing this case.
(Re-examined by MR RAMPTON Q.C.)
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Can I ask you to expand on some of the last
evidence you gave, Professor Funke, can I put my question
in this way. You have spoken of the danger of right-wing,
extreme, or neo-fascist, neo-Nazi rabble rousers going and
speaking in some areas of Germany, particularly those that
have a sensitive economic and social context, like former
East Germany. If I am a rabble rouser, and I go to a poor
district of a place like Halle, and I address an audience
of skinheads, let us say, or partly of skinheads, on, for
example, I am not saying this happened on this occasion,
Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism; does that have any
impact, in your judgment, from your knowledge of this area
of life in Germany? Does that have any forward impact on
attitudes generally towards, for example, auslander?
A. There are insider reports from people who were in this
scene and then left the scene that showed very decisively
exactly that, that they need a kind of encouragement, if
I may say so, to this direction, and that they have
to encourage each other, to do the deeds they are doing there.
Q. We can be fairly banal, trite about this, can we not,
would you describe Hitler or Goebbels as rabble rousers
when they spoke?
A. Yes.
Q. So far as you know, did they ever wield a club or a gun
themselves?
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A. No, they wore nice clothes, for example. Sometimes they
also appeared in various kinds of Nazi, like Nazis
uniforms, so it depends on the occasion.
Q. But they did not stand on the edge of pits in the East and
machine gun Jews, did they, Hitler and Goebbels themselves?
A. Can you translate that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think there was a misunderstanding. You
asked about clubs or guns and you got an answer about clothing.
MR RAMPTON: I think it was an answer, yes, they had nice
uniforms, but, no, they did not shoot people.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: It could have been an answer.
MR RAMPTON: Is that right?
A. Say it again.
MR RAMPTON: Yes, they had nice uniforms, but, no, they did not
shoot people?
A. No, not in this period, in this stagings, of course, not.
Q. I mean themselves personally? They shot themselves at the
end, I know that?
A. So far we know not.
Q. So far as we know.
A. Right.
Q. Can we go back a bit, please, and do you have your report
there? I want to deal, if I may, with Mr Irving's
repeated suggestion that he has never spoken of the
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non-existence of gas chambers except in terms of
Auschwitz, and Auschwitz alone. So I would like you to
look at some material. At the top of page 55 you quote in
English from an interview with Mr Irving reported in a
magazine called Code for December 1989, yes?
A. Yes.
Q. I think we find that article in H5.1(i) if you like at
page 324?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is the one we looked at before.
MR RAMPTON: Yes, but I want to ask about a different part.
A. H5 and then?
Q. H5(i).
A. OK.
Q. I would like you to look at the bottom of the first
column, page 324, sorry, you are quite right.
A. Yes.
Q. 54 of the actual magazine.
A. Yes.
Q. You have got it. Under the heading (German spoken) yes?
A. Yes.
Q. Excuse my German. Now, could you just read to yourself,
not out loud, from "journalist" down to the end of first
quote for Mr Irving?
A. OK.
Q. Again, with the word (German spoken) and tell us what it
means.
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A. The journalist refers to eyewitnesses, that especially in
the last days of war there should have been the gassing
very intense before the liberation of the camp. Irving
answers according to the official version of history, in
October 1944, the gassing ended and then he adds: But why
scientific researches are not taken into account of
"laborisgeschaft" (?).
MR IRVING: Forensic?
A. Forensic, right, and then the next sentence is: The result
of this forensic research is clear. There were no mass --
MR RAMPTON: Killings?
A. -- killings by poison gas.
Q. Thank you. You take that to be a general statement or
specific to Auschwitz?
A. This is related, so far I gather it, to the forensic
researches, but the sentence itself says as (German
spoken), there were no mass killings by poison gas.
Q. So it might be related to the forensic, so-called forensic
examinations, done by Professor Leuchter at Auschwitz
might it, do you think?
A. Yes.
Q. Yes, thank you. Now I want you to look at another one.
Pages 63 to 64.
A. Of my report?
Q. Yes, please. This recites as we realized as we were going
through it, paragraph 5.3.13.
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A. Yes.
Q. Recites something that Mr Irving said at a place called
Moers; where is Moers?
A. It is in the western part of Germany.
Q. On 9th March 1990, could the witness see, well, let me
please just first read how you translate it at the bottom
of page 63 and the top of page 64. There is a reference
to Auschwitz, Mr Irving says: But the dummies are still
standing in Auschwitz because the German government has no
sway there and understandably that is a problem for you,
that you have a government in Bonn that allows its own
people to be defamed by all countries of the world,
although in the meantime it has cried out that these
things in Auschwitz and probably in Mydanik, Treblinka and
in other so-called extermination camps in the East are all
dummies"; who made that translation? Who made that
translation? The German is at the bottom of the page,
footnote 229, do you know who made that translation?
A. No.
Q. Well, can you look at the German at the bottom of the page
in footnote 229. It is a video cassette.
A. Yes, video cassette, 187, David Irving in Moers.
Q. There cannot be any dispute about the German unless it has
been mistranscribed. The sentence begins (German spoken)
have you got that in a footnote?
A. Yes.
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Q. Can you read the German, please, to yourself?
A. Yes.
Q. To the end of sentence.
A. Yes.

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